


Snippy Cursive

by DragonBandit



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Blood magic rituals leave marks, Canon Era, M/M, References to Dorian's personal quest, Soulmates AU, Tevinter Bullshittery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 03:06:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8732383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonBandit/pseuds/DragonBandit
Summary: Hissrad wakes one morning to find “Please refrain from coating Vitaar on your face,” in the snippiest, curly common he’s seen in his life written on the inside of his wrist.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [uniqueinalltheworld](https://archiveofourown.org/users/uniqueinalltheworld/gifts).



“Rilienus,” Dorian hisses, “Rilienus are you awake?”

Rilienus blinks, groggy in the dawn light. Around him are a library’s worth of books on all things related to spell theory discovered in the last age up to present day. One of them has droom conspicuously smeared across one of the more heavier passages. The candle he was using has sputtered out in it’s own wax.

“Dorian, what time is this?”

“Four in the morning.” Dorian waves his arm in dismissal. “Now are you awake or not. I have a problem I need a second opinion on.”

“What is it?”

An arm is promptly shoved in Rilienus’s face. “Ah.” he says, after a short moment. 

“Ah indeed,” Dorian says tightly. The bravado from before missing entirely. “I’m right then?”

“I can’t think of anyone else that would draw something like that. Much less on their arm.” Rilienus looks up, into Dorian’s stricken features, and the desperate way the other man is trying so hard not to cry. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“No matter.” Dorian says. He tries to smile, and even Rilienus, who has a horrible time judging emotions at the best of times can realise it’s fake. “I likely would have never met him regardless. Especially not have been able to--” His throat bobs. 

Rilienus stands, matching Dorian in height. He opens his arms. 

Dorian sobs into his chest, muffled tears making the front of Rilenus’s shirt wet with salt water. The vitaar patterns on Dorian’s arm shimmers in the candlelight, and markless, Rilienus can’t help but think that he is the lucky one in this scenario. 

 

* * *

 

 

Hissrad wakes one morning to find “Please refrain from coating Vitaar on your face,” in the snippiest, curvy common he’s seen in his life written on the inside of his wrist. The usually angular letters loop together, making the handwriting almost impossible to decipher. 

For a minute, he’s not entirely sure how it got there. He certainly didn’t write on his arm in common. And definitely not in blue ink. 

Then he remembers: there are old stories, threaded through the teachings of his Tama and his training, of souls linked together with ink. Of people separated from each other by seas communicating with patterns of Vitaar and select teachings of the Qun, discovered when a Saarebas wore the markings of a Sten into battle, though they had no need for the armour and had never touched Vitaar. 

His soul link has decided to use common. Not Qunlat, not Vitaar, in fact they have specifically requested no Vitaar at all on Hissrad’s face. Already, a suspicion is formed. 

Common is not a language that comes easily to his fingers, more used to reading it off stolen ‘Vint reports than writing it himself. 

“Who are you?” He carves into his wrist below the snippy cursive. Quill pen held awkwardly in his hand to get the letters right. 

He stares at his wrist for a few minutes, but there is no response. Across the sturdy desk is a mess of paperwork. More important than whoever it is that wants him to go unprotected. 

Hissrad does not look at his wrist for the rest of the day. 

Later, when he is retiring for bed, he glances at his arm. Most of him is sure there won’t reply, but idle curiosity makes him turn over his arm to reveal the inside of his wrist. 

 

_ “I don’t see why I should have to tell you that when you are the one who made me marr my face with three layers of foundation to cover up the lines. _

_ “I don’t want to talk. I just want to make it so I don’t have to go through my makeup at triple the rate I currently am. _

_ “People will talk. _

_ “Not that I suppose you give a nugs arse about what people will say when I walk into the circle with heavy black lines running down my cheeks and neck and shoulders. _

_ “No I suppose it will be a fashion statement. I’ll be the belle of the ball, in a month everyone will be wearing kohl streaked in such a way as to look like Vitaar. _

_ “Oh who cares that it’s practically treasonous, it certainly looks fantastic with the rest of my outfit!” _

 

Hissrad’s entire forearm is covered in the cursive. Despite himself, his lips quirk. His heart sinks. His Kadan is Tevinter. Hissrad will never be able to meet them. Worse, only Mages live in circles. 

He shouldn’t write back, but perhaps his Kadan is someone in a position of power, who will have information about Seheron, and will be too stupid to withhold it. He dips a quill into ink. 

 

_ “You write a lot for someone who doesn’t want to talk.” _

_ “You can blame my tutor. For someone who knows almost nothing about the subject he’s talking about he certainly can drone on about it.” _

_ “You’re a mage.”  _

_ “And you’re a Qunari. Is there anything else you want to disclose? Or have you already realised that talking at all is only going to result in more trauma for either side of this accursed thing.” _

_ “Is that what you think this is?” _

_ “Think what?” _

_ “That this is a curse.” _

 

A pause. Hissrad stares at his grey skin until it’s marred once again by peacock blue ink. The words are easier to read. Like Snippy Cursive had to think about what they were going to write.

 

_ “I was under the impression that Qunari aren’t ones for magic.” _

_ “This isn’t magic.”  _ He switches to Qunlat, “ _ Asit tal-eb Kadan ataash varin kata. _ ”

_ “I cannot read qunari.” _

_ “Qunlat. And it’s something like, In the end, glory lies with the one who’s heart is meant to hold.” _

_ “I wouldn’t have imagined you as being a race capable of something like poetry.” _

_ “How’d you imagine me?” _

_ “Let’s just say that the propaganda here is appalling and leave it at that shall we?” _

 

Another pause. Hissrad stares at the words, and can feel the tension in the way the cursive doesn’t quite match the ones above it. He doesn’t know what to say, but he can tell that there’s something wrong. 

For all that his soulmate is not anyone Hissrad can meet (let alone gain fondness for past a vague liking), he wants to make them feel better about this than they obviously are. 

 

_ “So. I guess nothing with rippling thighs, and muscles stretching for days. The glistening sweat on my back merely highlighting the brutish power that lay within them? _ _ ” _

Instantly,  _ “Hardly! _

_ “And you can’t write things like that. Someone will see!” _

_ “You need to get some longer sleeves, if you’re worried about people seeing.” _

_ “Are you saying that you’re going to be covering my arms in ink more often then?”  _

 

Oh. 

Hissrad hadn’t thought of it like that. Again the reasons he should stop flick through his head, along with the reasons of why he should keep a communication channel open. 

In the end, he decides based on the fact that Snippy Cursive is interesting. Hissrad has always had a lack of interesting in Seheron that didn’t end with someone’s face blowing up. 

 

_ “Thought you weren’t interested in us keeping in touch?” _

 

Hours later, when Hissrad has assumed that Snippy Cursive has given up talking, another sentence appears. 

 

_ “Well perhaps I spoke a little too hastily.” _

 

And below that, hurried, tiny, where Hissrad has to squint to see it. 

 

_ “My name’s Dorian. What should I call you?” _

_ “How about you call me Hissrad?”  _ He writes, equally small. Equally hurried. Like he’s telling a secret. 

 

(It is grounds for re-education for a Qunari to have a soulmate on the side of Tevinter. It suggests a capability for thought not in line with the teachings of the Qun. Especially for Qunari in Seheron. Especially Qunari with the title of Hissrad.

For all of his excuses, Hissrad knows exactly what he’s doing when he starts to talk back.)

 

* * *

 

 

_ “How do you know who you’re attracted to?”  _ Dorian writes in dark blue ink across his thigh. A slash of pain that no one will ever see. His lips tingle from being pressed against anothers. Bruised red from lips and teeth where Dorian has nibbled at them from worry. And the other teeth that nibbled at them from lust.  

This wouldn’t be a problem, if Dorian had done the smart thing and kissed a girl. Alas, he isn’t smart, he isn’t someone who can just pretend to be like all the other normal alti children ruining their lives by following their parents wishes. 

He’s the boy who got drunk and kissed another boy and wanted more with every heartbeat. Already, his heart is breaking. 

_ “You okay over there?”  _ Hissrad writes in black, blocky common across the palm of Dorian’s hand. Nothing at all like the smooth curves of their Vitaar that Dorian still has to cover with strong concealer and layers of foundation. 

_ “Perfectly fine. Nothing physically wrong at all,”  _ Dorian replies, flippant as he can make a silent missive. 

_ “You know that’s not what I asked.” _

There is a moment where Dorian considers lying. But the last time he tried that Hissrad had said that the slant of his letters was off of all things and made him spill everything.  _ “It turns out that I might never be fine.”  _

He scrawls on his thighs,  _ “I kissed a man and I want to do it again. I might want to do it for the rest of my life.” _

_ “I don’t get how that’s a problem.” _

_ “I LIVE IN TEVINTER, HISSRAD.” _

No answer. Dorian doesn’t blame them. For all that they are soulmates, fated lovers, whatever, they don’t do an awful lot of talking. Both of them having decided separately that there was no way for it to happen. Dorian a spoiled Altus brat, Bull a soldier doing war on what might as well be a world away for all the chance that Dorian would be able to go there. 

Most of their conversations result because Dorian is bored learning about arcane theory from old men who don’t have a clue what they’re talking about. 

A day later, across his neck, where someone might put a love bite is a tiny heart. 

His first reaction is anger. How dare Hissrad do this. But then even that fades and he’s left with--with knowing that his soulmate doesn’t give a fuck what gender it is that Dorian is kissing. Which while unhelpful is at least validating enough that Dorian no longer feels like he’s going to burn alive from the pain of it. 

The final reaction is picking up a pen, and asking a question Dorian has been scared of since the very start of this. Perhaps more scared than any other question he could ask Hissrad except for one. 

_ “Are you a man, Hissrad?” _

_ “Yes.” _

 

* * *

 

Every day Seheron gets a little bit worse. Hissrad doesn’t know how to explain it. He tries, sometimes, in the dark when the rest of the building is asleep and you just can’t hear the sobbing and the screaming of the battle raging outside. 

Water hitting rough stone, until the stone is smooth. Until eventually there is nothing left of the stone at all. 

Hissrad thinks sometimes that he is the stone. Instead of the water the Qun purports him to be. 

It is wrong to think this. These days Hissrad thinks a lot of things that he isn’t meant to think. 

The first is Dorian. The second is home. These two things are more interlinked than they have any right to be. 

There is writing hidden in every inch of his Vitaar these days. What used to be drips of communication has turned into a flood. Dorian is the closest thing to a friend that Hissrad has. 

Tiny words hidden wherever there is space paint a map of every thought crime Hissrad has ever committed. 

Saarebas on the lifelines of his hand. A product of Dorian trying to learn Qunari and failing in the tricky grammar and curved lines. Katoh along his thigh because sometimes they indulge in bad decisions together when they should be sleeping but can think of anything but. 

Kadan left unsaid on the inside of his head. Where HIssrad will never, ever say it. 

A host of equations and ink blotches on his fingers in a dark blue ink that does not exist on Seheron because the mineral used to make it is native to a very particular spot in Tevinter that Hissrad knows but will never ask Dorian if that is where he is from. 

They cannot meet. A fact that will always hurt. 

He never writes on his body what he thinks, the days he cannot sleep. He never writes “I think I am going mad.” Or “I can’t do this, I am becoming wrong.” 

He writes, “Hey sweetheart.” and “Tell me what you’re working on,” And “What are you wearing?” with all the subtext that can mean. 

Re-education gives him a new name. The Iron Bull. Tal-Vashoth, Orlais. 

(Dorian stays in his skin and his head and The Iron Bull is never sure whether to be glad of this or to hate this mark that he is much broken that the Qun should allow him to be. The more time he spends in Orlais the more he is glad. He is not a true Qunari and he does refuses to think hard on the fact that sometimes he hides information that he should not be.)

The one thing that Bull is sure of, is that he is glad to finally, after years, be done with Seheron. 

 

* * *

 

 

Dorian tells Felix about Bull the day that Felix tells him that he has the blight. On all sides, it is not a very pleasant conversation. Dorian cries. Felix looks at him soberly and puts the rest of the pieces in place as he has always done. 

“Do you love him?” Felix asks, breaking an unsaid agreement. He is soulmate-less, born of two soulmates who married for love instead of power. Felix has never quite understood what kind of life Dorian must live. 

“I don’t see how that matters,” Dorian says. He tries to smile, “It is not as if I can do anything about it.”

Felix’s face falls. “Dorian if there’s one thing that dying has taught me it’s that you have to make the most of the time you’re given. If you want to do something you should do it. Your parents, Tevinter itself, be damned.” 

“You’re not going to die,” Dorian hisses. “You can’t, I’m going to find a cure by myself if I have to--”

“Dorian.” Felix says. So soft that Dorian should barely hear it but it feels like being blasted in the face with fire. “Dorian there is no cure for the blight.”

“I’m going to make one.” He insists. 

Felix is silent. Only smiling, a smile that Dorian is starting to find annoying. “Do you love him?” He asks again. 

“Felix please.” 

“He’s only in Orlais, you said. I’ve been to Orlais. So long as you hide your magic in public they don’t really care about us. We are registered to proper circles after all. You won’t get taken for an apostate.”

Dorian snorts, “I don’t think my soulmate is exactly in the parts of Orlais I would want to be in.” He drapes himself across the plush couch, “Can you even imagine it? Me, in the middle of some swamp or tavern? I think I might as well die don’t you?”

“I think it would be romantic,” Felix laughs. “You wandering around the country with a man that you very clearly love.”

“....Well,” Dorian says. He doesn’t tell Felix that love is a taboo topic, among the things he and his soulmate talk about. 

 

_ “How is the weather down there?”  _ Dorian writes when Felix is asleep. 

_ “Raining, and my horns itch all the time. How’s your friend?” _

_ “As well as could be said for someone with the blight.” _

_ “Ow.” _

_ “Quite.”  _

_ “You gonna be okay?”  _

_ “He’s my best friend. I’d give anything for him to be better.”  _ Dorian breathes. In through his nose and out of his mouth.  _ “Bull I’m scared.”  _

_ “How do I help?”  _

Love me, Dorian doesn’t write.  _ “Take me away from here.” _

_ “Of course, Kad--”  _ The word is abruptly smudged before Dorian can read any more of it.  _ “Lemme tell you about the kid I picked up a town over.”  _

He falls asleep reading. Not an unusual occurrence, both before and after the advent of his soulmate. His dreams are nightmares, but that’s been the case for a while now. Felix needs to be cured. Dorian is the greatest mind of his generation, but even he is starting to think that there is no way to cure the blight. Not in his lifetime. 

He hates admitting it. Especially to himself. 

 

* * *

  
  


His name is Krem. 

(“Cremisius, you great lug.”

“Yeah there’s no way that’s going to happen.”)

A kid, by all means of the phrase, but sent to war anyways. He’s okay with a sword, better with a maul as big as he is tall and about as heavy as a pig. The first time Krem stops a group of bandits on Bull’s now blind side he has to admit that he might just be a little impressed.

A little mind. There’s no need for the kid to get a swelled head and all. 

“So you’re not really Vashoth,” Krem says, when Bull tells him the whole spying on Orlais for the Qun thing he’s got going on. 

“Guess so.”

“You guess so?” Krem’s nose screws up as he squints. Bull’s pretty sure the kid has eyesight troubles one way or the other, but he’s not worked out yet in which direction. 

“I write letters home,” Bull says. “Lots of soldiers do that.”

“Yeah but yours are going all the way to the  _ qunari _ .” 

“Yeah. That’s where home is.”

Krem scoffs. “Is that where your other letters are going too then? The ones you write in Common and Tevene?” 

“What--” Bull’s hand twitches. He closes his eye and then laughs. “Can’t hide anything from you, little Hissrad.”

“I have no idea what that means,” Krem says. “So are they? Is your soulmate somewhere pretending to be another Tal-Vashoth and you use common as a way to send really sappy endearments to each other?”

“My soulmate is a ‘vint,” Bull says. “Calls himself Dorian. And we don’t send sappy endearments to each other.”

“Yeah, you do. You have a heart, on your neck.” Krem snorts. “No last name?”

“Nah,” A shrug. “He ain’t ever wanted me to know that.” 

“Why not?” 

Bull shrugs, “Guess ‘cause there’s no way we’re going to meet unless a miracle happens. No need to know things like last names.”

Krem grunts. Conversation gone. Later he looks up at Bull and says, with a considering look and an air like he’s been thinking this a while, “Don’t see why not. It’s not like you hate each other or anything. Tevinter is easy enough to get into if you know what you’re doing.”

“We’re not going to Tevinter Krem.” He doesn’t think about the way his chest flutters the barest amount at the thought of it. 

“Alright. If you’re sure. He’s probably an arse anyways. What’s for dinner?”

 

* * *

 

 

There is an incident, and Dorian finds himself in a desperate need to be anywhere but here, anywhere but with  _ him _ .

Even in the circle where he has never visited, Dorian can feel his presence. This crawling ache on the back of his neck and the insides of his wrists. His wrists. 

His wrists that are littered with common in two different scripts, both clearly masculine to the trained and biased eye. And then the Qunlat that Dorian is determined to know and now all of it marred by red, red, red. 

It is enough to make him throw up, the first few nights he spends without sleeping. Instead staring at his wrists for an endless, ageless amount of time. He is staying with Rilienus, as his father rails at their family to make Dorian come back to where he belongs. Dorian is eternally grateful that Rilienus and his family are kind enough to refuse.

He can only be grateful that whatever the ritual was for obviously didn’t work. He still likes cock. Still only wants one person’s hands in particular on him. Maker he’s pathetic, pining after a man who makes no secret that he beds anyone who ever asks. Dorian has never once inquired as to whether this is a habit that has continued as he and the Iron Bull grow closer. Scared of the answer, he supposes. More likely because it would make him furious with jealousy. 

This is fine, he thinks. This must be fine. He cannot pine for the rest of his life for a man whose face he doesn't even know. 

Then of course the sky splits, green of the fade leaching through and demons falling on Orlais and Fereldan, falling on Bull. Instantly all thought of trying to let the man go is tinged with the panic that he might die if he runs afoul of one of the more prickly demons. 

Falling on Felix whose letters of recent years have become rather, odd in what they don’t quite say. 

It does not take much thought for Dorian to travel to Redcliffe. At the very least to check up on Felix. All this demon nonsense must not be good for his condition. It would be good for him to have a friend to confide in while he is there. It is not as if there is anything left in Tevinter for him.

Dorian does not write on his wrist that he is leaving the country. He doesn’t see what the point would be. Bull is in Orlais, and Redcliffe is quite solidly in Ferelden. Still worlds away, for all that they are bordering each other. Just as Seheron and Tevinter are worlds away, for all that they share a border. 

 

* * *

 

 

Dorian has, over the many years of looking at himself in a mirror, memorised the thick lines of Vitaar that Bull uses as protection. He has, through inquiry, found out that Vitaar is individual. Each pattern unique to the one wearing it. 

The Qunari with the massive war axe has a mirror image of the Vitaar that Dorian very carefully hid just that morning. 

Oh. 

The Iron Bull calls him pretty but looks at him afterwards as nothing more than a very entertaining dog who might go rabid at any moment. 

Oh, Dorian thinks. A faint horror surrounding him as he realises that the Iron Bull has no idea who Dorian is. Oh, he thinks as he realises that he desperately wants the Iron Bull to know who he is. 

They are so close to touching that it physically hurts to not be able to reach out and do it. To curl his fingers around the thicker (and sometimes missing) digits. To not be able to then take that hand and press it to his mouth. A promise of more things once there are eyes not on them. 

He’s never wanted that before. 

He’s never been in the position to want that before.

Oh, Dorian thinks. Over and over and over, as the rest of the Inquisition starts work on getting this breach sorted with. 

He picks up a quill, wondering the best way to go about phrasing this. To make Bull not be mad at him for not informing him that Dorian had made his way to Ferelden. Though unfair, considering that Bull hadn’t exactly told Dorian about his own journey to the freezing backwater. 

A drop of blue ink falls on the back of his hand. 

And then of course all hell breaks loose. 

 

* * *

 

 

The Iron Bull leans on the bookshelves of the Library and casts a curious glance at what Dorian is scrawling in his battered notebook. 

The handwriting makes him freeze. And then his heart picks up, whispering what he should do. 

Bull shoots it down. If Dorian wants him he’ll come. If he doesn't then Bull won’t be the one to put any expectations there. Better no soulmate, than an unhappy one. 

 

* * *

 

 

It is an age later, when Dorian manages to make his way up to the Bull’s room. In Skyhold, with it’s missing wall, and hole in the roof. He is wearing a cloak, that throws his face into shadow. 

Time has only made the conviction that he must do this even stronger. Each time Dorian is near the Bull his chest burns with the want. With the need to do something that will make the Bull look at him and realised that Dorian’s heart is held in the Bull’s giant hands. 

“Bull,” he says, his voice strong even as his insides shake. Elocution lessons, how Dorian has always fallen back on them, “Bull there’s something you should know. About me.” 

The Iron Bull, Dorian’s soulmate, Hissrad, Amatus, looks up at him. His one eye is quirked, a smirk playing about his lips. “Yeah? And what would that be?”

Dorian lets the cloak fall. In the lamplight he is sure the dark lines across his cheeks are thrown into sharp relief. Just as they are on the Bull’s face. He smiles, hoping, unsure. Waiting for the world to fall into pieces. 

Bull stares. 

In the silence Dorian can hear the drills of the soldiers. The hum of the tavern. The beat of his heart speeding steadily faster as the weight of Bull’s stare makes his shoulders slump and his stomach churn. 

“Say something,” Dorian begs, once he can’t take any more of it. 

“Kadan,” Bull says. 

“I don’t speak--” but he does. Dorian knows this word, has pored over it so many times against his skin that he has memorised what it looks like in two languages. Common and Qunlat. 

“That’s your word for soulmate, isn’t it?” He says. 

The Bull’s hands come up to Dorian’s shoulders. One to stroke almost reverently across his face, across the Vitaar. 

There is one more  thing that Dorian must say. The hardest question of all. Felix, years ago asking the question and now Dorian must answer. Or this will all be for naught. 

“I love you.” His eyes close, “Though I, completely understand if you don’t feel the same way and I don’t expect anything from it I just--” his voice cracks. “Well. I just thought that this might be something you should know.”

“Kadan,” Bull says again. Fondness tinging the word. “Kadan, I already knew.” 

His lips press against Dorian’s. Calloused and rough and perfect and Dorian could cry with the happiness that bubbles up through his entire body. 

“Oh,” he says, against the Bull’s lips. “Was I that obvious about it?” 

“No one else could talk like you do,” the Bull murmurs, “With or without ink.” He is suddenly very close, and very large and solid. “You look hot wearing my Vitaar. How about you and I get to work on all those things we wrote to each other when you were bored.” He nibbles, very gently on Dorian’s bottom lip.  

Dorian’s words leave him rather abruptly. “Ah.” he says, eloquently. Once the Bull is far away enough again to speak “Is that, something you desire to do?”

“If you do.” Bull says. 

Dorian raises his chin, and can’t help but smiling. “The safeword is Katoh,” he decrees. Bull smiles back, the most wonderful thing that Dorian has ever seen. 

**Author's Note:**

> I tried. I'm sorry. I hope I got what you were wanting. There were a lot of deadlines involved and this was very last minute so my sincere apologies.  
> Unhlbated but has been edited so hopefully I havent missed too many errors
> 
> Regardless, happy holidays!


End file.
